Smashing Pumpkins
Gish

THE REVIEW

"Gish" is the excellent and underrated debut of the Smashing Pumpkins, dated 1991 (a truly blessed year!). An initial success that, as often observed with other talented bands of the period, was overshadowed by the equally groundbreaking "Nevermind" by Nirvana.

"Gish" takes its title from the surname of the famous silent film actress Lilian Gish, whom Corgan had heard mentioned by his grandmother. The album is evidently a child of the 70s sound, including Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, as well as the alternative scene that was forming in the late 80s. The sound and lyrics, not yet fully matured, have a scent of the ancient, the sad, the dry, and the primordial, in the sweetest and angriest sense. The style of the Pumpkins is hinted at from the very beginning and will be confirmed in a more dreamy way in Siamese Dream until reaching the highest peak in the monumental Mellon Collie!

The album opens with the straightforward I am one, a single on 45 rpm labeled SUB POP, then moves to the psychedelic Siva, a track to listen to and listen to again, before passing to the melancholic Rhinocerous with a video shot in a famous London park, as dreamy and surreal as that of the first single Siva, featuring a similarly long-haired Corgan among shocking pink water pools, floating flowers, and the rebellious platinum blonde locks of the historic bassist D'Arcy, along with the astonishing and dry drum rolls and guitar riffs by Chamberlin and Iha, respectively. This is followed by a scorching Bury me with a captivating sound between the acid and the otherworldly. Crush is languid and dragging yet compact overall, as it continues with other robust thrusts between Suffer and Snail to catapult in just a few minutes into another potential single: Tristessa, engaging, warm, and rocking. Windowpaine is just a finale and a splendid hint of that dreamy melody that would then characterize the Pumpkins in the future; in Daydream, on the other hand, a title that seems to pay homage to "Daydream Nation" by Sonic Youth as much as the candle in the Siva video seems to recall the cover of the 1988 masterpiece, the impactful vocals are by D'Arcy, too bad her voice could later only be heard in a hint in Mellon Collie. The end of the track closes with an echo of the ever-present Corgan saying "I'm going crazy!" It’s all directed by the legendary Butch Vig, who would gain even more credibility with Nirvana obviously, Sonic Youth, L7, and again Smashing Pumpkins before forming his own group, Garbage.

Overall, in my opinion, an excellent work, absolutely primordial... in these desolate 2000s, I still haven’t found a debut album that conveys to me the same passion combined with equal quality of the tracks... but I feel it will happen, it’s been too long that music has been trapped in this current stagnation!